Jerry Houston wrote:
That said, it amazes me that fellow Linux enthusiasts often miss an important issue when they complain about the predominance of Windows. PEOPLE WANT IT. Not everybody's just like us.
I don't think it's that simple. From what I've learned, there is really only a vocal minority who actually want windows. Most people just take the default, and really aren't aware they have any choice in the matter. I know it sounds cliche, but the main reasons that people in this second category are using windows boil down to fear and ignorance. Fear of the unknown, fear of having to learn something new, fear that they won't be able to surf the internet, send mail, watch videos online, even fear of losing their investment in antivirus software, spyware removal tools, popup blockers, etc. Ignorance of the fact that alternatives exist, or that every microsoft press release might have an agenda and not be completely accurate as regards the competition. I was happily using windows, was mildly enthusiastic about the coming of nt, had a large investment in pc-oriented books and software, and was going with the flow. I was aware of unix but considered it out of my reach. When I learned of this thing called linux, which brought the power and flexibility of unix to the same commodity hardware which comonly runs windows, I was all for trying it out with a dual boot. After a few months, I shrunk the microsoft partition down to a fraction of the disk space. A few months after that, I nuked windows completely and have been a happy camper ever since, but for those occasions where microsoft influence makes things awkward for users of alternative OSes. So the moral of this long rant is that we shouldn't assume every windows user is a flaming microsoft fanboy. Some are, and hey, more power to them. whatever floats their boat. But let's put the information and the choices out there in front of them, and we may be surprised how many choose linux, once all the facts are out in the open, and the choices are available. Joe -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org